Homesick
by Checkerboards
Summary: The sequel to 'Home Sweet Home'. The lairs are destroyed, there's a trio of women out for blood, and the Riddler's in Arkham. What's a henchgirl to do?
1. Going Strait

A howling scream, bereft of hope, bereft of joy (and especially bereft of sanity) cut through the air. Again.

"Shut up," Eddie muttered, smacking the back of his head dully on the wall separating him from the screamer, who ignored him in favor of screaming again. "Shut up," he repeated with another listless head-smack on the concrete blocks. Scream. "Shut up." Scream. "Shut up."

It is an odd thing, but asylums are possibly one of the best places to go to if you want to become truly mad. Asylums cause insanity just as bees cause honey and romances cause the sales of Kleenex to rise.

It is particularly odd, considering that the asylum is meant to _cure_ insanity. It is supposed to be a haven from the world where broken minds can rest and heal in a nurturing atmosphere. Because this was Arkham Asylum, it was a little light on the nurturing atmosphere, but it was very emphatic about healing shattered minds. Sometimes, this required a broken bone or two, or a few thousand volts coursing happily between your temples, but broken minds _would _be forced back into the strictures of sanity that society demanded. And if the patients complained, well, who would listen? The criminally insane have always lacked credibility.

Edward Nygma was sulking in his cell. Now, sulking is a pretty normal activity for an inmate at Arkham. The prisoners there tend not to spring from their cots with a smile and a song (that is, with one very perky tasseled exception). Eddie had more than the normal reasons to sulk, however, since he'd been wrapped in a straitjacket for most of the last two days.

He'd been angry, at first. Not because he was in Arkham - he'd practically volunteered - but because his neighbor would not shut up. He'd asked reasonably. He'd demanded silence. He'd probably gone a _little_ too far yesterday when he'd started punching the walls and howling anagrammed death threats, but it certainly hadn't warranted _this_.

He slumped back against the wall, letting his feet dangle over the side of the bed. He was so _tired_. The man next door never _stopped_! He never lost his voice, he never ran out of infinite variations on the theme of whatever insanity currently gripped him, and he only slept a few hours each day! During those few, precious hours of silence, Eddie found himself tensed and waiting for that next irritating shriek to split the air.

He'd tried to explain this to the guards when they were wrestling him into the straitjacket. For some reason, telling the guards that he couldn't sleep because it was quiet and that the man next door was a raving lunatic hadn't impressed them.

They could have drugged him! He would have eagerly gone along with _that_ plan, even though he hated being sedated. He couldn't think anyway, so what was the point of resisting? And he probably wouldn't have been able to hear the screams through a warm, fuzzy layer of Thorazine.

But no. Straitjackets were cheaper than drugs. And what did _they_ care if the guy next door kept screaming? _They_ got to go home at night. What did they care if his arms were burning with pain? What did they care about anything, really, except their paychecks?

The paired click-and-shuffle of footsteps in the hallway told him that a guard was leading someone down the hallway. A door clanked open and closed again.

Eddie rolled awkwardly to his feet and tried to catch the guard's attention before he left. "Hey! Hey, you! Let me out of this thing!" he demanded.

The guard rolled his eyes, feeling safe behind the thick plexiglass that separated them. "Why should I?"

He obviously wasn't going to let him go until Eddie made it clear that he was sorry. That is, until Eddie sacrificed his dignity on the altar of obedience and asked nicely. Eddie grumbled "Because I'm not going to hit the wall anymore."

The guard snorted with laughter. "Yeah. Right." He started to walk away.

"Hey. Hey!" Eddie protested, banging one shoulder against the window.

"Thought you said you were done doing that," the guard called back mockingly as he left.

"Bastard," Eddie spat, giving the door a solid kick. He glanced across the hallway to see Two-Face sitting casually on the edge of his bed.

One of the reasons that everyone hated Arkham was this: it was humiliating. It was a serious blow to the self-esteem of any rogue to be stripped of their finery and tossed in a cage like an animal. It was made worse when supposedly well-meaning doctors interfered in their lives "for their own good".

Everyone knew that the only ones the doctors really cared about were themselves. If it was _really_ about what was best for the rogues, the psychiatrists would be busy tormenting Batman while they ran amok in the city. No, the psychiatrists generally only cared about their own, personal safety, and to hell with anything the rogues wanted.

This meant that all of the rogues had seen each other in some of the most degrading situations Arkham could offer. Even being in a straitjacket was bad enough, but there were a whole host of other issues that arose when one no longer was allowed to have hands.

It might have been tempting for the rogues to turn on one another and laugh at the poor schmuck in the straitjacket. However, the biting, witty sarcasm that went along with these remarks would have been promptly deflated when the target snapped back "And what about the one _you_ were in last month?" Teasing someone about a common problem was just about as useful as tying knots in a live rattlesnake.

So, rather than snicker at Eddie's plight, Harvey simply said "Rough day?"

"You don't know the half of it," Eddie said.

A grim smile widened half of his mouth. "I might."

Eddie sighed and started to seesaw his shoulders back and forth. Doctors be damned. He'd put up with this _thing_ long enough, and it wouldn't take that long to wriggle out of it. "So what happened to you?"

The grim little smile raced downward into a scowl. "Those two ninnies wanted us to go to a haunted house." He shrugged, wincing as the motion jarred his injured shoulder. Obviously his handful of days in the infirmary ward hadn't done him any lasting good. "And then the Batman showed up. The girls tried to fight him, but they couldn't land a punch to save their lives. Henchgirls are more trouble than they're worth."

"Tell me about it," Eddie sighed.

Harvey's good side grinned evilly. "Oh, yes. We heard about your three flooding your hideout."

Eddie summoned all the dignity that was currently available to him - roughly enough to fill half a thimble - and said coldly "Those three are not with me anymore."

"Traded them in already, huh?" Two-Face chuckled.

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"You're going to run out of girls if you keep this up, Edward."

"This one's different," he said, ignoring the amusement in Harvey's voice as he eased his half-numb arms over his bowed head. Almost there...

"Hey!" Eddie dropped his elbows to see a different guard scrabbling at his door. _Shit_. He ducked his head and tried to yank his arms over it. Unfortunately, the strap connecting them had caught on one of the buckles in the back, and all he succeeded in doing was getting a little too personal with the bottom strap of the jacket as he pulled the whole thing upward.

The guard rushed in. "Hands up," he ordered automatically.

Eddie regarded him with a look of utterly superior disdain. "How, exactly, am I supposed to do that?" he asked, nodding at his arms, which were now trapped in a style that indicated he was practicing his corpse impression.

"Oh." The guard paused for a moment, rethinking his strategy. "Down on the ground then."

Eddie obediently began to crouch, then sprang onto the bed, putting the guard's head at kicking height. If he could manage to aim _just right_...

The guard muttered something obscene and lunged toward him. Eddie let fly with a superb Bruce Lee kick to his solar plexus. Of course, since he had no arms for balance and no real way to stop himself on the slick institutional blanket, this meant that the guard then had one hundred and ten pounds of yelping, restrained Riddler shoving him down to the floor. The guard fell squarely on his tailbone and skidded backward, helped along by the Riddler's elbows jammed into his shoulders.

Eddie triumphantly kneed the man in the face as he leapt to his feet. Right. Now, all he had to do was get his hands free...He ducked his head again and slipped the joined arms of the jacket over the back of his head.

When his vision was no longer filled with white, the first thing his eyes focused on was the sparking prongs of a stun gun aimed directly at his nose. "Down on the ground, Nygma," the guard snarled. (At least, that's what Eddie _thought_ he said. It's difficult to talk with a broken nose and a set of rapidly swelling lips, not to mention a broken tooth, so it sounded more like "Daub all the cows, Digba.")

Since there were no bovines around, and since that stun gun was being held by a man who was obviously eager to use it, Eddie dropped to his knees. "_Right_," the man said thickly, before muttering a garbled order or two into his belt radio. They stared at each other in silence for a few moments.

It had been stupid to attack him. Why had he done it? Okay, he was half-crazy from sleep deprivation, but that didn't mean he had to be_stupid_. The plan had been to lay low, hadn't it? How was he supposed to lay low after _this_?

A team of guards burst into the room. After a brief struggle (really only for form's sake, since there was no way in hell he could hope to face down four guards and win) they left him pinioned by the wrists and ankles to his bed.

"Better luck next time," Harvey growled cheerfully from across the hall.

"Oh, shut up," Eddie snapped. He hoped Jackie was having better luck than him.

(_to be continued_)


	2. Hide and Seek

Being captured by Nightwing had been one of the scariest things that Jackie had ever experienced. It wasn't just that he was huge - which he was, since he appeared to be six feet of solid muscle wrapped in spandex and funny boots. Besides, everyone looks huge when they're trying to fight you - and it wasn't just that he didn't seem to care if he hurt them on their way out of the building. The fact that he was cheerfully holding a conversation with Eddie as he nearly wrenched their arms out of their sockets was more surreal than scary.

No, what had frightened Jackie was what came next: jail, and everything that went hand-in-hand with it. Being locked in a little room for the rest of her life didn't scare her half as much as the thought of being locked in a little room _with a murderer_ for the rest of her life. Maybe being one of the Riddler's vast ensemble of henchgirls might save her from some of the various nasty things that happened to inmates...then again, maybe not. Being his henchgirl hadn't exactly done _good_ things for her so far.

Eddie had knocked them into a heap at the front door. While she stared blankly at Nightwing tumbling into the suit of armor, Eddie had yanked her to her feet and shoved her out the door. He'd said in a calm voice, as if he was commenting on the weather: "Run."

And she had. She had taken off like a greyhound chasing a fat rabbit. She'd been running for a full minute before she realized that she was running alone.

She stumbled to a halt and glanced behind her. No Nightwing, which was good...but no Eddie, either. Slowly, hesitantly, she crept back down the street toward the hotel. When she was two blocks away, she spotted him. Eddie was there, all right - he was being stuffed into the back of a cop car. Its lights twirled lazily in circles. Jackie stepped back into the shadows.

She didn't want to leave him there...but at the same time, she couldn't bring herself to step forward into the lights. He'd said to run, hadn't he? Maybe he hadn't wanted her to be caught. She backed away down the alley and ran again. She didn't know where she was running to - she certainly couldn't go back to either of the old lairs, not if the trio of ex-henchgirls was about, and there was nowhere else to go!

So she ran into the depths of the city, ignoring everything but the sensation of her feet thudding down on the cracking cement of the sidewalk. Aimless running will only last for so long, however, and soon Jackie wheezed to a halt in front of an old, crumbling apartment building. The front door hung off of its hinges, scorch marks and bullet holes telling a very violent kind of explanation as to why no one lived here anymore. She didn't want to go in, but she couldn't stay outside. She crept in and began exploring.

Something that very few people realize about Gotham is that nothing is ever simply abandoned. Oh, the rogues may traditionally choose "abandoned" buildings to live in - comedy clubs, toy stores - but they've only been abandoned by the owners. The homeless population in Gotham filled these abandoned spaces like a rising tide.

Most of the little rooms she wandered past contained some kind of life. Most of them paid attention to her just long enough to make sure she wasn't a cop and then returned to their own business.

She finally found an empty place on the very top floor, in a room that smelled like several goats had been using it as first a toilet, then a tomb. It was tiny - just big enough to contain a bed (made of splintery wood and lacking a mattress) and a tiny bathroom on the far wall. Jackie was thrilled to discover that it was stocked with a solitary can of air freshener. Best of all, though, there was a lock on the door. She sprayed down the air in the little room, locked the door, and curled up on a pile of thin, ratty towels in the bathtub.

Where was she going to go? This room was fine for now, but someone had to live here. What if they came back?

She needed somewhere safe. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere that Eddie's old henchgirls would never think to go in a million years.

* * *

The Gotham Public Library's nearest branch was a massive structure that lurked quietly in the midst of flashy shops hawking the latest in electronics. Jackie wandered inside, looking longingly at the computers before disappearing into the stacks. 

She could spend her days here until Eddie weaseled his way back out of Arkham - reading books, maybe picking up some hints from the True Crime section about what her future might hold. She strolled through the aisles, trying not to look conspicuous, and stepped into section 365.

She'd expected books about the rogues. She hadn't expected _shelves_ of books about the rogues, or the vigilantes for that matter. Books with titles like "Batman: Urban Savior or Bump in the Knight?" jostled for space alongside "Joining the Wrong Team: An Examination of Sidekicks" and "A Look Inside Arkham Asylum." She picked that one up and flipped through it. The occasional picture flashed out at her - the dull beige lunchroom, the stone-and-plexiglass cells, one of the little recreation rooms...The pictures went from bad to worse as slowly they started to feature people. A grinning inmate posed triumphantly amidst the shredded wreckage of his blankets. A screaming man in a straitjacket, arched like a bow, dragged his feet as a pair of guards pulled him down a hallway. She sucked in a breath when she saw a picture of the lunchroom again, this time filled to the brim with angry, rioting inmates. And...she squinted...yes, there was Eddie, wielding a lunch tray like a broadsword. He didn't look angry, though, he looked...scared. Terrified. Like braining the guard with the lunch tray was his only hope of survival. What if...what were they doing to him right now? Was he in danger? Was he hurt? Was he...

She slammed the book shut. No more. Worrying about him wasn't going to help either of them, particularly since she couldn't do anything about it. She stuffed the book back onto the shelf and looked for something else.

There was a splash of green on the top shelf. She read the book titles as she slowly wandered down the row. The Enigma of Crime. The Deadly Question. This one was about Eddie, too, and that one...Eddie, Eddie, Eddie - did he know there were this many books written about him? - Eddie, Eddie-

_Wham_! Her shoulder smacked into someone else's. "I'm sorry," they both apologized simultaneously, turning to face one another.

"Jackie?" the other woman gasped.

Oh, hell, it was one of her old coworkers. The receptionist. Why hadn't she bothered to learn people's names? "Oh. Um, hi," she said lamely.

"Are you okay? I mean, there's all these rumors about you going around." The woman's eyes got a little wider as she remembered the biggest one. "They said you're with...he's not _here_, is he?"

"No," Jackie said uncomfortably. "No, he's...not."

"You got away from him!" the woman beamed. "Great! Do you need a place to stay? Have you called the cops on him yet? Did you-"

Jackie mentally stood back and let the flood of questions wash over her. Oh, yes, _now_ she remembered this woman's name. Yvonne. Who could forget yammering, yapping, yippy Yvonne with her never-ending babble?

"...I can call them for you, if you want," Yvonne offered, pulling out her cell phone.

"No!" Jackie yelped. "No, I mean, that's fine, Yvonne, really. Don't."

"Are you sure? I get good reception-" Yvonne said, starting to dial 911.

Jackie smacked the phone out of her hand. It dropped on the tiles with a sad little clattering noise. "I said don't!" Yvonne blinked at her, looking like a little puppy not understanding what the big deal is about the little wet patch on the carpet. "Look," Jackie tried to explain, "you don't have to call them. He's already in Arkham."

"Oh. Oh!" Yvonne brightened. "And you didn't want me to tie up the 911 line. You're such a sweetie, Jackie, always thinking about other people."

And that was the other thing about Yvonne. She dropped compliments more often than clowns dropped their trousers. Half the time, you weren't quite certain if she really meant them, or if she was just saying them to be nice.

Jackie was fairly certain that this was one of those just-being-nice things. "Sure," she said. "Fine. Nice seeing you-"

"No, wait!" Yvonne protested, catching her by the sleeve. "You can't just _go_! I mean, we've all been worried about you, wondering what he did to you..." _Translation_, Jackie thought coldly, _you want more gossip for the office_.

"He didn't do anything to me." At Yvonne's look of disbelief, Jackie's mouth decided to explain things without her brain's intervention. "Well, okay, he burned down my house-"

"He burned down your _house_?" Yvonne yelped at approximately six hundred decibels.

"SSssssssh!" Jackie hissed.

"Sorry," Yvonne whispered. "He really did that?"

"Well, it wasn't all his fault. I mean, it was my turn with the donkey and I knocked the candles over." Yvonne stared at her. "Because of the blindfold." More staring. "Look, it would have been fine if he hadn't put kerosene in the fire extinguisher!"

Yvonne nodded slowly, clearly not understanding but not wanting an explanation, either. "Right. But, um, after that?"

Jackie sighed. "Well, I mean, he...I...well, I didn't have anywhere to stay, and he had a couch..."

"You slept on the Riddler's couch?" Yvonne gasped. "Are you_ insane_?"

"No! Look, he's a nice guy!"

"He's a _supervillain_!"

"Not all the time!" Jackie shot back.

"He's criminally insane!"

"Well, yes, probably, but-"

"_Probably_?" Yvonne shook her head pityingly at Jackie. "They don't lock people up in Arkham if they're _probably_ insane."

"Well, it's...he...it's complicated," Jackie muttered.

Yvonne stared at her. "Obviously."

"Look, I've got to go," Jackie said desperately.

"You can't!" Yvonne said, catching her around the wrist as she tried to dodge past her. "Jackie, you can't go live with the Riddler!"

"Well, no," Jackie said absently, trying to wrench her wrist out from between Yvonne's red-painted acrylic fingernails, "he's not at home now, remember?"

"You can't go live at the _Riddler's house_! Jackie, they'll think you work for him! They'll think you're _with_ him! They'll think you're _like_ him!"

Now was probably not the time to mention that she _was_ like Eddie, since they'd both thrown themselves in front of Bats to let the other get away. Somehow, Jackie got the impression that Yvonne would miss the point of the story - Eddie's sacrifice for her sake - in favor of noticing those pesky little details like, oh, the fact that she'd almost been dragged off to jail and tried for attempted murder. "Yvonne, let _go_," she hissed.

"I won't let you ruin your life!" Yvonne snapped back.

Jackie let out a little snort of laughter. "Where were you last month?" she asked, trying once more to jerk away. "It's too late, Yvonne, I'm already his henchgirl."

"You're not," Yvonne declared, with uncertainty shading her voice.

"I am. Let me _go_!"

Yvonne did not. Instead, she tugged Jackie to the mouth of their aisle and leaned out toward the lobby. "Someone call the cops!" she yelled.

"Yvonne!" Jackie gasped, horrified.

"This is for your own good," Yvonne explained, waving to the librarian at the front desk. "You! Call the cops _now_! This is the Riddler's henchgirl-"

Jackie pulled frantically on her arm, trying to get Yvonne to let go (or failing that, to get her to shut up for two seconds). She finally took a page out of Nightwing's book and wrenched Yvonne's hand up against her spine.

"Ow!" Yvonne shrieked. Her fingers automatically loosened and Jackie broke free, wincing as Yvonne's sharp red nails scraped against her inner wrist. She took a second to elbow Yvonne hard in the ribs - _for_ her_ own good,_ Jackie thought venemously - and dashed to the doors, nimbly ducking around the one overweight security guard that tried to block her path.

Well, so much for a peaceful afternoon at the library.

(_to be continued_)

* * *

_Author's Note: The picture of Eddie mid-riot was one of the panels from Arkham Asylum: Living Hell. _


	3. Two Heads are Better

Something was wrong.

Eddie's eyes flew open. There was something indefinably, inexplicably wrong with the world. What was it?

Well, option one was probably the straitjacket. It was amazing how uncomfortable they were, particularly when you'd been stuffed into one on multiple occasions within the same week. It hadn't been _his_ fault, though. The man next door had been howling and screaming and ranting and how was he supposed to _think_ when the air was constantly filled with threats and cries and incredibly disturbing descriptions of what the screamer would rather be doing? Eddie's whole life had been based around one thing: his ability to think, and now it had been taken away. Was it any surprise that he had taken to using their shared wall as a boxing partner?

He wriggled off of the bed and padded to the huge plexiglass window that faced out into the hallway. Harvey Dent, across the hall, was snoring with his regular _chk-chk-chk-brzzz_ing sound, but that wasn't what was wrong. Harvey had snored as long as Eddie had known him. No, it was...was...

Harvey was snoring _and he could hear it_! Eddie spun and raced to the wall, pressing his ear hard against the concrete. No sound. None! No screaming, no muttering, no anything!

He let the wave of soundlessness wash over him as if he was an opera aficionado at a performance of _L'Orfeo_. Oh, it was grand, it was glorious...Eyes still closed, he backed up toward the bed, not wanting to interrupt this moment of perfect silence.

_Whongongongong_..."Ouch!" Eddie yelped, his right calf stinging from the impact with the solid steel bedframe.

Across the hall, Harvey sat up in bed. "Shut up," he growled, automatically looking across the hall towards Eddie's neighbor.

"Sorry, that was me," Eddie explained, gingerly settling down on his bed.

But Harvey wasn't looking at him. He was still staring into the cell next to Eddie's. "Where'd they take him?"

"Take him? He's gone?" Eddie gasped, leaping to his feet.

"Well, he's not there," Harvey graveled.

"He's gone?" Eddie repeated. "Really? He's not there?" He pressed his forehead to the window like a small child eyeing a particularly colorful toy in a shop window. "I want to be completely, totally clear about this. You're absolutely certain that he's gone?"

"Yeah," Harvey grunted. It was easy to see the absence of things. Not seeing things that _weren't_ there, however, was a skill that had eluded certain other members of Arkham's alumni for quite some time.

"YES!" Eddie screeched, skipping and whirling about in a dance of utter happiness. Since his arms were firmly wrapped around his torso, it wasn't quite the display of ecstasy that he wanted, but it was enough to let his absolute joy show.

Harvey squinted across the hallway in the dim night lighting, ignoring Eddie's embarrassingly happy dance. "He must have broken out," he commented. "His door's still open."

The dance stopped. "It is?"

"Yeah." Harvey put his head against his window and looked down the hallway as far as he could. "And there's a guard on the floor down there."

Eddie planted his own face against the window. There was a dark smudge that could be a foot right on the edge of his field of vision. He returned to the center of the room and started thrashing back and forth inside the jacket. If he hurried, maybe he could...no, they'd put him in a Posey jacket this time, hadn't they? Damn. It took a lot more time to weasel out of one of those. Still, what else was there to do?

If the guy next door had escaped, it was only a matter of time before Batman and company brought him back. Eddie was determined to get out of there before that day arrived.

* * *

_One week later_

To the casual eye, Arkham's rec room that day seemed fairly quiet. Everyone was involved in their usual, solo activities (except for Jonathan Crane and Jervis Tetch, who were once again occupying the little chess table). Eddie was seated on one end of the ratty, threadbare couch, holding a logic puzzle book and the little sticks of charcoal that were their only writing utensils.

He filled in a little row of Xs. Again, to the casual eye, it was merely another step in the solution to the puzzle. But the casual eye was ill-informed, since Eddie was really in the process of solving a much more important riddle: how do I get out of Arkham?

There were no guards in Arkham's rec room. No one really wanted to hang around with up to twenty of Gotham's most infamous, no matter how well armed they were. (In fact, being armed was really more of a hindrance than a help, since weapons could be held by any hand.) And anyway, even though the last guard to stand duty in the rec room had made thousands of dollars off of his memoirs (_No Shirt, No Shoes, No Legs: Surviving Riots at Arkham Asylum_) no one really wanted to follow in his footsteps. Er, his _lack_ of footsteps.

Since there were no guards, and since the tiny cameras in the corners had no microphones, it was the perfect place to plan things with one another. Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn had put together quite a few heists there. And, of course, this had been the room in which Eddie had talked everyone into participating in his last Bat-baiting scheme, the one that had landed him on a hospital bed more times than he was comfortable remembering.

He had his lockpick. He had a plan. There was only one little detail to wrap up...

"Checkmate," Jonathan Crane said smugly to Jervis, who sighed and began shifting his pieces back to their starting positions. Eddie filled in another few Xs for the look of the thing and glanced at the table. Jervis flicked the last piece into place and looked up, locking eyes with Eddie.

With the tiniest flick of his eyes, Eddie indicated that Jervis should come over. Jervis, obedient as always to the forces of curiosity, slipped out of his chair and headed over. "_Yes_?"

"Haven't you won a game against him yet?" Eddie asked.

"_You insult me by talking such nonsense_," Jervis frowned and shifted away.

Eddie quirked an eyebrow. "You just have to figure out how to get your king around all those troublesome little pawns."

Jervis stared at him sullenly. He was in no mood to take chess advice from anyone. "_I advise you to leave off this minute._"

"What the king _needs_," Eddie repeated, ignoring Jervis, "is a little _help_ getting past all the _pawns_."

Jervis stood there silently for a moment, obviously wondering how a king could get help. "_Kitty, can you play chess?_" he asked disbelievingly.

"Who said I was talking about chess?" Eddie returned.

Like toast popping out from a toaster, realization dawned on Jervis. "_Oh, Kitty, how nice it would be if we could only get through to Looking-glass House!_"

Well, finally. If he'd had to hint any harder, he might have sprained something. "Will tomorrow night work for you?" Eddie asked in a low voice.

"_Of course_," Jervis beamed.

"Good. I'll see you then." Eddie marked down another X in his puzzle. "And stop calling me Kitty!" he added as Jervis sauntered back over to the chessboard.

It was a sad but true fact that the Riddler couldn't reliably break out of Arkham alone. Oh, he'd certainly tried, through the years, and on occasion he'd even managed to succeed...but there were all too many times when he'd found himself bundled back to his cell with a fresh new set of bruises because he hadn't quite managed to slip past all of the many guards that roamed Arkham at night. When there were two rogues escaping, the odds shifted more to their favor. It wasn't exactly the safest thing to do - particularly since everyone understood that, in a pinch, they'd do their best to throw each other to the wolves - but it worked far more often than solo escapes. Besides, in group escapes, Jervis was useful in a very specific kind of way.

Jervis was whispering urgently to Jonathan Crane, who muttered something irritably at him before nodding sharply at Eddie. It looked like Crane was in, too.

They wouldn't ask anyone else to join them. In point of fact, they couldn't even let the others know that they were breaking out, which was the whole reason Eddie had had to toss out chess metaphors instead of a simple question. If the others knew, they'd want to come along.

It was really the B-list villains that they had to avoid. No one really wanted to try and escape with the likes of Signalman or Captain Stingaree. If you had to resort to cooperating with someone who would willingly name themselves _Stingaree_, you may as well just turn in your spandex and reform, because no one would ever look at you with any kind of respect ever again. Ever.

The A-list rogues were problems in their own right. Most of the others wouldn't deign to admit that they couldn't handle an entire asylum full of guards by themselves. Most of the others, in fact, _could_ handle at least half of an asylum full of guards by themselves, a fact that irritated the plotting trio to no end.

Asking Two-Face to join them was entirely out of the question, since that coin was too unpredictable. Asking Harley Quinn along was tantamount to simply inviting the Joker, something that no one wanted. No, it was safer if it was just the three of them.

_Safer_, not _safe_. Nothing was ever _safe_ when rogues got together. Dealing with the rogues was very much like dealing with a herd of cats. It could amuse them to cooperate or to eviscerate you, whichever felt best at the time.

All that Eddie could do is build up his plans and hope. He caught Jonathan staring at him and, wordlessly, a new plan was added to the stack building up inside his brain. Oh, yes, tomorrow night was looking better every minute...

(_to be continued_)

* * *

_Author's Note: Once again, everything Jervis says is a direct quote from either Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass. _

_I can't tell you anything more about Eddie's ex-neighbor without totally ruining another story. Let's just say that this is not the last we've seen of him and leave it at that. _


	4. Homeward Bound

_Last week_

Jackie was severely tempted to pay Yvonne a visit at home, preferably with something heavy and blunt in her hands. Someone in the library had actually listened to her and called the cops! Jackie had managed to dive to safety in a clump of trash cans when she heard the first siren, and she spent the next three miserable hours buried in garbage while a pair of cop cars prowled silently around the neighborhood.

It was midafternoon by the time Jackie pulled herself out of the garbage. She hadn't gotten any of it on her - well, not too much, at any rate, and ketchup stains washed out, didn't they? (At least, she thought it was ketchup. At least, she _hoped_ it was ketchup.)

She badly needed a shower and a bed that didn't consist of thin, ragged towels. She couldn't go back to that apartment building. Okay, so it smelled a bit better than she did at the moment, but she wasn't about to take a shower there. She was scared and lonely, and like most scared and lonely people, she wanted nothing more but to curl up in her own bed and pull the sheets over her head until the world went away for a while...provided, of course, that "home" wasn't also full of love-crazed girls who wanted her dead. She didn't want the world to go away _permanently_, after all.

But where else could she go? She couldn't just stay in this alley forever. There had to be somewhere else to go...she didn't dare try to contact any of her other coworkers, not after Yvonne had had the time to call them and fill them in on what she'd been up to.

Oh! Harley Quinn! They were friends...kind of...Maybe if she tracked down Harley, she could stay with her! She'd said her hideout was rigged out with all sorts of goodies. Yeah! Just her, and Harley, and the hyenas...and the Joker.

Oh, no, no, no. That was not going to happen. Jackie had a deep, to-the-bone fear of the Joker that paralleled the one inside most Gothamites. Just the idea of meeting him sent a cold sweat trickling down her spine.

Fabulous. Now she smelled like _sweaty_ garbage. She bit her lip and thought hard. Well...could she just go back to the lair? They'd been hiding for what, a week and a half? Surely the girls would have stopped watching the old lairs. Somehow, she got the impression that their collective attention spans were somewhat short. They surely must have gotten the point that they weren't welcome by now...and if they were there, she could probably asphyxiate them just by walking inside.

And so Jackie slipped quietly through the alleyways back toward the hideout. Not the one that the girls had found them in - she wasn't about to risk that - but the main hideout, the very first one she'd ever lived in.

When she finally arrived, there was no purple door in sight. There was a brand-new green door, though, that looked newly painted. She barely remembered Eddie telling the girls to tell someone to fix the doors. Apparently they'd carried out their orders before they'd discovered Eddie was missing. Fortunately, the new door hadn't yet been rigged out with puzzle locks, so Jackie was easily able to slip inside.

There was no one in the living room. She crept from room to room, silent as a cat - a clumsy, nervous cat that had a bad habit of whacking into doorframes. At the end of her nerve-wracking search, she let out a gigantic, relieved sigh. She was alone.

There were no locks whatsoever on the door - apparently Eddie's reputation was important enough to keep random wanderers out of his lairs - but that wouldn't keep Jackie safe if the trio decided to come back. In place of a lock, she dragged the entertainment center and the broken television in front of the door.

She hoped Eddie would get back soon.

* * *

_Now_

It was quiet in the halls of Arkham. Inmates, stunned under a chemical blanket, lay torpid and unmoving as the footsteps of a lonely guard clacked quietly on the linoleum floors.

Edward Nygma, sometimes known as the Riddler, was stretched out quietly on his worn little bed. He'd been able to sneak his own ration of sleeping pills into his palm, and then into his mattress when the orderly dispensing medication had wheeled his squeaky cart away.

The guard's flashlight flicked over Eddie's face through the plexiglass window at the front of the cell. Satisfied that he was still there, the guard moved on. Once Eddie could no longer hear his clicking shoe heels on the linoleum, he slipped out of bed and got to work.

The old-fashioned locks of Arkham were no match for the Riddler and his carefully straightened bedspring. He picked it in a record three seconds and poked his head out into the hallway. No guards. He picked Crane's lock and swung the door open.

The Scarecrow strode into the hallway. "You've got the thing?" Eddie whispered.

"Of course," Crane sneered down at him, showing him the tiny little cylinder held loosely in his right palm.

Jervis giggled to himself as Eddie opened his door. "_How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail,_" he sang cheerfully, bouncing out of his cell.

The other two whirled to face him. "Shut up," they said simultaneously.

Jervis stuck out his tongue. "_And pour the waters of the Nile on every golden scale!"_

"At least sing it _quietly_," Eddie grumbled, rolling his eyes as Jervis stubbornly continued the poem. Crane's eye began to twitch.

They padded down the hallway. As they neared the T-junction that would eventually lead them to the main stairwell, a guard rounded the corner, stuffing the last bit of a peanut butter sandwich in his mouth. His eyes went wide as the three rogues separated and began to close in on him like a pack of hungry wolves.

"Mmmmf!" he swore, fumbling his gun out of its holster with peanut-butter-covered fingertips.

Crane tsked disapprovingly at him. "Drop it," he warned, revealing the suspicious-looking container tucked in his right palm.

The guard swallowed hard. "You drop it," he said, working a mouth that had gone desert dry with peanut butter and fear.

Crane smiled evilly. "If you insist," he said, making as if to throw it at the feet of the guard.

"You'll gas them too!" the guard snapped, edging backward.

"Do you honestly think that would matter to me?" Crane said, advancing on the guard with a slow, even tread. The guard, his entire being focused on that little cylinder in Crane's hand, hardly noticed Eddie creeping up behind him. It took only a few seconds to snatch the stun baton out of his belt and apply it to the back of his neck. The guard fell to the ground like a ragdoll, ending up in a sad, curled little position as his skull smacked hard into the floor. His gun skittered to Crane's feet. Jonathan grinned and scooped it up, fastidiously smearing the peanut butter off on the back of the guard's thin blue shirt.

"_Hand round the plum-cake_," Jervis protested, tugging on his sleeve like a greedy toddler.

There was no way on earth that they were going to trust Jervis with a gun. Crane tossed him the little canister instead. "You can have this."

Jervis poked at the little plastic cylinder. "_Nothing but a bottle of ink,_" he grumbled sullenly.

"Actually, it's a salt-shaker," Crane corrected, flicking the safety off of the gun.

"_That's full of hay_!"

"Salt," Crane sighed. "It's just a decoy, Jervis. Must you continually quote that _nonsense_?"

"_Hold your tongue_!" Jervis snapped angrily.

"Can we go already?" Eddie hissed, peering around the corner. "They're going to notice that what's-his-face isn't answering his radio in a minute."

"Fine." Crane took the lead, which was more than welcome to Eddie and Jervis. Always be _behind_ the madman with the gun. They tiptoed through silent halls. As they rounded the corner that led to the staircase, they stopped, appalled, at the sight of a horde of trainee guardsmen being instructed by two veterans.

There was a petrified moment of stillness as the two groups stared blankly at one another. Then, as one, the trainees began ripping their guns out of their shiny new holsters. By the time they had them out, the three rogues had turned tail and raced back down the hallway.

"I thought you said it would be clear tonight!" Crane scolded as they whipped around the corner.

"Well, they must have changed the schedule," Eddie said, miffed. They skidded to a halt by the downed body of the guard.

Hostages were wonderful things. They could get you out of virtually any situation, they were fun to torment, and in a pinch, they could be used as shields to hide from overzealous trainees. Eddie and Jonathan each yanked one of the guard's arms upward, leaving Jervis to haul his feet into the correct position. The trainee guards skidded around the corner.

All three rogues decided that the best place to be was directly behind the unconscious guard. They cracked together and fell on the ground in a tangled lump of limbs. "I warn you," a muffled voice came from the pile, "we're armed."

"We'll kill him!" another one chimed in.

"_Off with his head_!"

"Shut up, Jervis!"

The unconscious guard bounced and jerked as the three would-be escapees tried to get to their feet without exposing themselves. The trainees waited uncertainly, glancing at their teachers for guidance as the trio jostled and kicked one another until they were upright again. "Looks like he's already dead," one of them said hesitantly.

"He's very much alive," the Scarecrow said coldly from his hiding spot behind the man's neck.

"Doesn't look like it to me."

"He's just stunned!" Eddie snapped.

"We could try for dead, if you'd like," Crane added, poking the muzzle of the gun meaningfully into the side of the guard's neck.

"You're not getting out of here," a confident voice oozed over the mutters of the unsure rookies. One of the veteran guards walked casually to the front of the group.

"Stay back," the Scarecrow warned.

"How do you think you're going to get past four floors of guards?" he continued, ignoring the threat. "Just put him down, and we'll forget this ever happened."

The Scarecrow and the Riddler glanced at one another. Oh, well. Time for Jervis to finally be useful. With a mighty heave, they tossed the guard at the group and raced away. Jervis, with a fresh footprint on his back, stumbled after the knocked-out guard with a yelp of dismay, tripping over his lifeless feet and landing squarely on his stomach in the very center of the horde of guards.

Guns cocked in a circle around him. Jervis, trembling, held up the little canister. "_I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded,"_ he warned, frightened and defiant.

The veteran guard sneered down at him. "You can't behead anyone with a salt-shaker." And Jervis disappeared under a swarm of blue-uniformed guards.

The other veteran guard and a few of the rookies were sprinting after the Riddler and the Scarecrow. Gunshots ricocheted from the bulletproof plexiglass of the cells with harsh _spang_ing sounds as they dove into the stairwell.

There was no time to talk, no time to plan. The escape had turned into a simple foot-race - if they could make it outside, they would win. If not, well, those guards looked awfully eager to practice restraining convicts...Their pace picked up a little.

The lobby contained one, solitary person - the night receptionist - who gaped uselessly at the two rogues as they raced toward the front doors. They hit the crash bars and simultaneously slammed backward into the floor.

"Unlock the doors," the Scarecrow snarled as he fought back onto his feet.

"Uh...um..." the receptionist babbled, looking as if he'd rather crawl under the desk and hide. There was no time for hesitation. Crane raised the gun and pointed it toward the desk. A neat bullet hole appeared in the computer monitor next to the trembling receptionist. "Okay, okay!" he wailed, pressing a button. The doors unlocked with a heavy _clank_ and burst open as the two rogues crashed through into the quiet, chilly night.

Without a word, they split up. The Scarecrow ran west, the Riddler ran east. Crane's thoughts had probably run along these lines: the group of guards would have to split up to catch them, and he could certainly outthink two guards...

But Eddie grinned manically to himself when he glanced over his shoulder to see the entire group of guards racing to the west. After all, what was the worst Eddie would do when he was out? He'd leave a few riddles, maybe steal a painting or something of the sort. And what was the worst that the Scarecrow would do? He'd reduce the collective sanity of Gotham into so much gibbering madness. Crane was high-priority. Eddie was not.

He giggled maniacally as he tore through the shrubbery. Oh, it was so good to be right...He ducked into the forested hillside that marked the outer border of Arkham's property. Almost there! With a look back over his shoulder to gauge his progress, he accelerated a bit. His chuckles turned to a screech of dismay as the ground disappeared beneath his feet and he tumbled down an unexpected muddy hillside that was studded with rocks.

Thud, thud, _ow_, tumble, _yowch!_, skid, splash, _crack_rattlerattlerattle...

He'd made it to the fence. Good. And he'd even found the drainage ditch with the loose grating. Of course, he'd found it with his face, which was less than optimal, but still - he'd found it. He wiggled the grating loose and eeled his way through, trying to ignore the squishy mud as it glopped in through all the new tears in his clothes.

He slowly lurched to his feet. Okay. He felt like he'd been fed through a meat tenderizer, but nothing was broken. And from the looks of the twinkly little flashlights heading his way, he'd better move it quick or pretty soon he'd be joining Jervis and possibly Crane in the infirmary ward.

It was only a few miles to his nearest lair, and at this point, he could care less about fighting off three over-amorous girls provided that they supplied him with hot soup and a towel first. Eddie squelched his way through the trees and disappeared into the night.

* * *

There are very few times when someone can feel both nervous to the point of panic and mind-numbing boredom. Waiting for your boss/friend who you have a questionable relationship with to escape from the insane asylum definitely falls into that category. 

Jackie had spent her week worrying, and cleaning, and worrying, and pacing, and worrying, and trying to hone her puzzle skills on a half-finished crossword book, and worrying. Was Eddie all right? Was that noise outside the trio of girls, back for vengeance? What if the Batman showed up?

At the moment, she was cuddled up on the couch under the green afghan, trying to read a copy of _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ and failing miserably. Normally, she would have been digging through the novel, ticking off the various ways that Disney had mangled the storyline. Instead, she had now read the same page ten times without remembering a word of it.

_Thud. Thud._ Jackie tremblingly stood up, clutching the book like a shield. Someone wanted in. The entertainment center and the broken television fell over with a loud _crunch_ as the door burst wide open. Jackie instinctively dove behind the couch. When she worked up the courage to look over the top, she saw a muddy Eddie dripping helplessly on the carpet and kicking television bits out of the way so that he could close the door.

"You're starting to make this a habit," Jackie said, hurriedly standing up and hoping he hadn't noticed her dive for safety.

"Very funny," he grunted, shouldering the door closed with a muddy squelch. "That's just what I needed right now, jokes."

"How about a towel?" she offered, retrieving one from the pile of clean folded laundry on the coffee table.

"Thanks." He buried his face in it. As he slowly began to emerge from under the layer of crackly damp mud, he revealed a set of bumps and scratches.

"What happened?"

He sighed. "Crane," he said, pointing at a scratch on his neck. He hoisted up a pant leg to reveal a foot-shaped bruise. "Tetch," he added. "And then I fell down a hill."

"Come on," she invited. "You've got clean clothes in the other room, and I'll microwave what's left of dinner for you."

"Thanks," he muttered, tossing the mud-streaked towel into an empty laundry basket.

Now that Eddie was back, she could stop jumping at shadows. They'd get themselves scraped back together, put some better locks on the doors, and try to get back to normality (well, what passed for normality among the rogues, anyway). There were costumes to fix, and heists to plan, and damage to repair. Life would finally be able to settle down again.

Of course, neither of them noticed the tiny, blinking light on the answering machine that was about to make their lives very interesting indeed...

* * *

_Author's Note:__ From now on, I'm going to have two stories running simultaneously - one on Mondays, one on Thursdays. While I'd love to start up the next Eddie/Jackie story right away, it's, erm, kind of entirely unwritten. So in the meantime, tune in for "Origins" on Mondays and "Green Eyes" starring Ra's al Ghul and Poison Ivy on Thursdays! (Oh yes, darlings, it will be much fun.)_


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